


Thaw

by Archaeopteryx



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Friendship, M/M, Slow Burn, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:22:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22030243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archaeopteryx/pseuds/Archaeopteryx
Summary: Raphael stared — the sun turned his brown eyes a luminous amber, like a cat’s. “That’s so scorching sweet,” he said, just as Dedue was about to ask if he’d said something wrong. “What the heck! You’re really sweet!”“Does it come as a surprise?”“I dunno anything about you, man. You’re so quiet it’s all a surprise.” Raphael grinned and clapped Dedue on the shoulder. “It’s cute! I like it."Raphael is determined to be Dedue's friend, and Dedue can't bear to deny him.
Relationships: Raphael Kirsten/Dedue Molinaro
Comments: 11
Kudos: 57





	Thaw

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the [FE3H Rarepair Port](https://discord.gg/ZCJ9dvE) for being a wonderful server, hosting this Secret Santa and providing support and encouragement along the way!
> 
> Raphael and Dedue are just such delights to write, and I had a lot of fun with this.

Hm.

Dedue frowned at the door of the greenhouse. This did not persuade it to open.

He shunted one bag of soil onto his other shoulder, but that left him with a smaller sack of gravel, a rake, and the smaller tools to contend with, and not even a finger free to unlatch the glass door. The usual greenhouse staff had conveniently vanished, and any passing students avoided eye contact — as if Dedue would have called any of them over, anyway. He could stack the smaller tools on top of the large bags, but … no, they would fall. It would take two trips, then. Frustrating to be thwarted by a simple door — 

“Oh — hey! Hey, you need any help with that?”

Turning towards the voice required a difficult shuffle to keep the heavy bags from toppling. Only an effort of will kept Dedue from startling, and upsetting the delicate arrangement of everything he carried, when the maneuver revealed a figure barrelling towards him.

“Hey! It’s, uh, Dedue, right? We do axe training together? You want any help?”

Yes, actually, but something bitter and stubborn in Dedue’s chest snapped shut at the suggestion. “You were on your way somewhere. I don’t wish to interrupt you.”

The blond boy — Raphael, that was his name, one of the few Golden Deer to pursue close-quarters battle — waved one blocky hand. “Jus’ to the dining hall! I have time.”

Hm. “In that case, would you hold that door for me?” Dedue inclined his head towards the offending obstacle.

“ … that’s it? No, man, give me — aw, crap — ”

Raphael reached for one of the bags of potting soil. Dedue stepped away, but lost his tenuous grip on the burlap. It slipped backwards off his shoulder, and he had no free hand to stop it — 

Raphael caught the bag, saving it from impact with the ground and splitting open on the brick walkway. He swung it under one arm and straightened up with a radiant grin. “There you go. You can’t carry all that at once. Let me help.”

“If you insist.” The metal handle of the watering can dug into Dedue's fingers, and his arm had begun to tremble from supporting the heavy soil. It helped to shift his grip on the remaining bag, and to transfer some of the tools to his other hand. “There’s a storage compartment at the back of the greenhouse.”

Raphael opened the door with his free hand, and propped it open with one foot. “Lead the way, boss!”

Dedue frowned at that, but brushed it off. “This way.”

He walked the greenhouse’s winding paths by memory so deep it had become habit — through the cluster of southern Adrestian fruit trees, past the plots of tea-plants and the shallow rice pools with their glimmering minnows, and the raised beds of carnivorous plants from Brigid’s bogs. Past all that, drab and hidden behind a thick clump of reeds, stood the gardener’s office and storage shed.

Raphael pulled ahead once more to open the door, but the handle only rattled at his touch. Then a lock clicked, a hinge squeaked, and a head of dusty brown hair peered out around it. “What?”

The gardener adjusted her spectacles and squinted past Raphael.

“Oh — Dedue! No one told me we had a shipment come in.”

That explained some things. “Good day, Ms Kertesz. It must have slipped their minds. ”

Ms Kertesz frowned, but she held the door for him and Raphael. “Who's this?”

“Kirsten! Raphael Kirsten.” The boy in question thrust out his free hand. It dwarfed the gardener’s when she shook it, but a look of confusion crossed Raphael’s face when he tried to let go. Dedue watched from the corner of his eye as he set down his load and sorted the tools onto their metal rack. Raphael giggled and wiggled his fingers. “Uh, can I have this back?”

Ms Kertesz released him, and nodded to the corner where the rest of the potting soil was stored. “You can put that down over there. Bags are sorted by size." 

“Right away, ma’am!” Raphael turned immediately, a spring in his step despite fifty pounds of topsoil on his shoulder.

Behind his back, Ms Kertesz gave Dedue a curt nod. A knot loosened in Dedue’s chest that he had not felt tighten, and he inclined his head in response. The head gardener’s approval was not easily earned. Dedue valued her goodwill, and she would not have liked him bringing some posturing brute into her office, even for a brief favor. He’d thought better of Raphael than that, but … well, trust did not come easily to him.

Raphael set the bag down with a grunt. Something pinged off into a cluttered corner off the office. He didn’t seem to notice, and Dedue didn’t remark on it. “There! You got anything else needs lifting?”

“Nothing that’s your concern.” Ms Kertesz crossed her arms. Light glinted off her glasses when she shot Dedue a pointed look. “Thank you for your help, but the _staff_ and I can take it from here. I’ll have a word with them, Dedue.”

“Indeed,” said Dedue. “Such absentmindedness should not go unchecked.”

Ms Kertesz gave him a look. Dedue returned it, unmoved.

The office shed was always dusty, covered in a fine layer of grit. Raphael coughed. “Uh … You sure you don’t need anything? I don’t mind helping.”

“I’m sure you both have studies to pursue,” said Ms Kertesz, without breaking eye contact.

“Actually, I — ”

Dedue had planned to spend the afternoon in the greenhouse, but there was no arguing with the gardener once she had ground in her heels. Confident his point had been made, Dedue turned away from the staring contest. “Understood,” he conceded. “Do have a word with the staff about negligence. Will you need any help with inventory later?” He bounced slightly on his toes, hopeful.

“Likely. Come back at … hm, half past the fourth bell. We should have everything unloaded by then.”

Dedue hummed, pleased. “Then we’ll get out of your way … ” Raphael was giving him an odd look. “Is something wrong?”

“Uh.” Raphael shifted on his feet like an elk calf, all awkward bulk. “I might … need … some help finding my way back out. The paths are all twisty!” he added when Dedue raised his eyebrows. His hands described some labyrinthine shapes rather more complicated than Dedue thought the greenhouse’s layout was, but he kept that thought to himself.

“I’ll lead the way. And I will see you later, Ms Kertesz.”

“As you please,” she said, but her eye gleamed with a warm light. Dedue nodded, brisk though his expression softened, and took Raphael by the elbow to lead him back out the way they’d come.

Rice pools, tea-plants, fruit-trees, and then the towering corpse-flower that marked the entrance. Dedue eyed it for any sign of bloom, but (as usual) found none. He turned back in time to see Raphael mop his forehead on his shirt, then scowl down at it like a spot of mold on a bread-roll.

“Are you alright?”

“Button.” Raphael pulled his shirt down over the curve of his belly — sure enough, one of the buttons had snapped. “Third time this week … Must’ve popped off when I put the bag down. Ugh. I’m never gonna find it.”

Dedue frowned. “This happens often?”

Raphael grinned with all the strain of cracked glass. “Tailoring costs money. Cheaper to fix a button every now and then.”

Dedue’s frown deepened. For the tuition Garreg Mach demanded, one would think the institution could at least provide its students with tailored uniforms. It had done so for him, but … he supposed there were advantages to serving a prince. “I can repair the shirt for you.”

He expected some argument or deflection. Instead Raphael brightened like a mirror struck by a sunbeam, and peeled off his shirt in one smooth motion. “Really? Thanks!”

“Um,” said Dedue, dazed by a gleaming expanse of gold-wire chest hair and sweat-sheened muscle.

Raphael pressed the shirt into Dedue’s hands with a blinding smile. “You’re a lifesaver, man! I’ll pay you back, I swear.”

“There’s no need,” said Dedue, uncertain. “It’s — you helped me in the greenhouse. Consider it fair.”

“Aw, I would’ve done that for anyone — ”

“And I would do this for anyone.” If he focused on a spot just behind Raphael’s head, he could concentrate against the heat rising in his face. “Although … don’t you need this?”

Raphael laughed. “Nah. My dorm’s right there. Not like it’s cold. Hey, I’m gonna go get a fresh shirt, but I was on my way to the dining hall. You wanna come?”

Dedue opened his mouth to decline, but he’d just walked away from his usual excuse; it was a rest day, so he had no classes or training schedule to call on; so he was left to bristle, square his shoulders, and bluntly state, “Your assistance is appreciated, but you should not pursue my company.”

Raphael dimmed, as if a cloud had passed over the sun. “What? Why not?”

“Value your reputation, if you wish to be a knight. Good day, Raphael. I’ll return your shirt once it’s repaired.”

“Wait! Hey, wait … ! I … you … okay.”

Raphael’s disappointment wrenched at Dedue’s heart, but he steeled himself. It was not the first time he’d nipped a friendship in the bud. It might not be the last.

It was better this way.

***

In the end, Dedue not only repaired the button, but restitched the seams where they’d begun to come undone. In the process, he added several inches of fabric on either side. He didn’t have Raphael’s measurements, and he didn’t want to ask for them, but he considered himself to have a sharp enough eye for the purpose.

He spent every moment he could spare in the greenhouse. Once, Raphael came looking for him, but the greenhouse was Dedue's refuge, and he ducked around a bend in the path before Raphael could spot him and call out. Training sessions proved challenging, but Dedue avoided eye contact, and Raphael didn’t press the issue.

The shirt posed more of a problem.

He did not want to complicate the issue. For both their sakes, Raphael should leave him alone. And yet … Dedue could find no real way to be sure Raphael would get his shirt without actually talking to him. He could ask one of the other Deer to make the handoff, but he didn’t know any of them well enough to approach. The same obstacle prevented him from learning which room was Raphael’s and quietly slipping the shirt beneath the door.

One day passed, and then another, with the washed and repaired shirt glaring at him from the corner of his desk. By the time a week had slipped by, Dedue wanted to be rid of the thing badly enough to grit his teeth, fold the shirt into a piece of thin butcher-paper, and tuck it beneath his arm the next time he left for the training yard.

He left it with his uniform when he changed into his gear, charged through the drills and practice duels with a focus singular even by his standards, and was quick to clean and replace his equipment as the cathedral bells tolled another hour. By the time anyone else filtered into the changing quarters, Dedue had done up the final buttons on his jacket. That was already his habit, but in this case, he wanted to make an especially quick escape — to return Raphael's shirt and leave before anyone could further associate them.

Oh, but it _hurt_ to see Raphael brighten when he approached, like the sun had come out. More like a passing comet, Dedue thought, indulging a rare and bitter poetic sentiment — a brief approach before they went their separate ways, hopefully for good.

He thrust the package out to Raphael before he could fret himself to a standstill. "Your shirt," he said, words clipped and monotone, face a granite mask.

"Oh, yeah! Thanks!" Raphael's smile dimmed only slightly. He took the package, and — faster than Dedue would have believed, in the brief moment when their hands nearly touched and the folded cloth hid the movement, Raphael seized his wrist. Dedue flinched, meaning to yank his hand back, but Raphael’s grip held.

“Can I help you?” he asked, frigid as a highland winter.

“I’ve been thinking,” Raphael said, with a seriousness that did not suit his face. “‘bout what you said. About my reputation. I figure, if someone’s got a problem with me being your friend, they’re not someone I wanna work for.”

“Can you afford to be so picky?” Dedue jerked his wrist again. Raphael’s hand might have been a manacle for all it yielded. Hilda’s curious eyes seared into him over Raphael’s shoulder. Edelgard’s attention pricked like a knife at the back of his neck.

“It’ll work out. I’d rather be a poor friend than a rich bastard.”

“Will your sister agree? Your grandfather?”

It was a low blow, meant to cut. Instead, Raphael threw back his shoulders and raised his chin. His eyes blazed like a lion’s. “Yes! Yes, they will! That’s what I mean, man, you — you barely know me, how’d you even remember my sis?”

“Cmon, Raph,” Hilda chimed in. “You mention her every chance you get.”

“Yeah, but not my granddad! And you’ve never even seen them, but you’re worried about how they’ll get by? _If_ we’re friends, and _if_ that causes me trouble … You spend all that time thinking and you’ll turn to stone.”

“And my face will freeze like this. You are not the first person to tell me so.” Dedue snatched his wrist back. His scowl only deepened. “I do not have the luxury of thoughtless action.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I get it, but … c’mon. One lunch won’t ruin anybody’s life. Come eat with me ‘n the Deer. We’re big guys! We gotta keep our strength up, right?”

Raphael spread his hands with a toothy, fragile grin, and — damn him for a selfish coward but Dedue could not bear to break his heart. If it got him out of this room, he could accept eating lunch with strangers. “Very well.”

“Yes!” Raphael punched the air with a cheer that, damn him, warmed the steel Dedue had hammered around his heart. “Okay! I still gotta change — give me a minute — don’t go anywhere.”

“I’ll wait outside,” Dedue said hastily. He retreated to the door before Raphael could (once again) strip in front of him. His heart already bore a grudge against his ribs, and there was no need to give it any further cause for violence.

The escape from a cramped, sweaty room into full sunlight had never been such a relief. Cool, clean mountain air calmed his nerves and cooled the flush of panic in his face. Warmth seeped into his dark silk jacket and unwound the knot between his shoulders. A knot of students passed towards the dormitories, chattering cheerfully between themselves, and not one even glanced at Dedue. Apart from a sparrow twittering on a nearby roof and the distant sounds of daily life, the air was quiet.

“On the name of the Goddess — !”

And then it wasn’t, as Raphael burst out of the training hall in a manner more befitting a bull than a deer.

"You fixed my shirt!"

Dedue inclined his head. "As I said I would."

"It _fits_! I don't remember the last time I had a shirt that fit! I'm gonna hug you. Can I hug you?"

" … if you wish." 

Raphael flung himself into Dedue’s chest and crushed the breath from him. Dedue stood stunned, not by the impact but by the flood of warmth — Raphael might have been a furnace, soft fat padding hard muscle and every ounce of him alight with raw enthusiasm. It had been years since anyone but Dimitri had come so close to Dedue. It had been years since Dedue would have allowed it, and — the part of him that had been a brother and a son unfolded like a leaf to the spring.

He made up his mind to return the gesture just as Raphael pulled away, scratching his ear with a small laugh. “I guess I got carried away. Uh. Sorry.”

Dedue stifled the ache of disappointment. “I don’t mind,” he said quietly. “I … am glad that my work has brought you happiness.”

Raphael stared — the sun turned his brown eyes a luminous amber, like a cat’s. “That’s so scorching sweet,” he said, just as Dedue was about to ask if he’d said something wrong. “What the heck! You’re really sweet!”

“Does it come as a surprise?”

“I dunno anything about you, man. You’re so quiet it’s all a surprise.” Raphael grinned and clapped Dedue on the shoulder. “It’s cute! I like it. C’mon, lunch is calling.”

Selfishness scratched at the back of Dedue’s throat, but he swallowed it, and followed Raphael towards the dining hall.

… _Cute?_


End file.
